The embodiments relate to a multi-viewpoint image generation apparatus and method to generate a multi-viewpoint image signal of more than two viewpoints based on image signals of two viewpoints.
For example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2001-346226 (Patent Literature 1) describes a multi-viewpoint image generation apparatus that generates a multi-viewpoint image signal of more than two viewpoints based on image signals of two viewpoints that are a left-eye viewpoint image signal and a right-eye viewpoint image signal.
The multi-viewpoint image generation apparatus described in Patent Literature 1 performs parallax mapping indicating a parallax between viewpoint images extracted from the image signals of the two viewpoints, so as to generate the multi-viewpoint image signal by use of the parallax mapping.